


Smooth Sailing

by peterparkr



Series: Febuwhump 2020 [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Earthquakes, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Whump, febuwhump 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22609618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterparkr/pseuds/peterparkr
Summary: Tony’s face goes completely blank at her words. “I’m going to die here, surrounded by undergrads and the college-bound—playing icebreakers.”ORTony takes Peter to tour schools in California and they get trapped during an earthquake.Febuwhump Day 4: Red Stains
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Febuwhump 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620064
Comments: 10
Kudos: 235





	Smooth Sailing

Tony’s less pushy about MIT than Peter thought he would be. He still makes some jabs about it, but for the most part he’s very open to other options. He even proposes a trip to California, to check out some of the schools out west.

They stay in Los Angeles first and visit California Tech, USC, and UCLA. On their last night, they drive out to Malibu and Tony shows Peter the site where his house used to be. 

“It feels like a completely different lifetime,” Tony says as he wanders the grounds.

“I remember watching this place collapse on TV. I told May there was no way that you’d—you know.” Peter picks up a rock and throws it into the ocean. “I was right. Obviously.”

Tony chuckles and picks up a rock of his own. He makes a big show of ensuring that it goes farther than Peter’s had. “Turns out I’m pretty hard to kill.”

Peter’s throat tightens a little bit. Instead of dwelling on it, he grabs another rock and chucks it with his full strength. It sails so far that he can’t even see where it hits the water. He turns back to Tony and sticks out his tongue, then sits near the edge of the cliff. Tony settles down next to him.

“I guess the last time you were here, you hadn’t saved the whole universe.” 

“Nope.”

“And you didn’t have Morgan.”

“Two for two.”

“You didn’t even know me!”

“You are—on fire tonight. You’re too good for these California schools, kid. You know there’s this place in Cambridge—”

Peter scrunches up his face and shoves his shoulder into Tony’s. Tony shoves him back.

“It’s just crazy to think about,” Peter says after a brief period of silence. “Would you go back if you could?”

“Well, I definitely _could_. I invented time travel.”

“Okay, so will you go back?”

“To when?”

Peter groans in exasperation and shoves him again. “Before everything? Before Iron Man?”

“You say that like I should have known what you were talking about. There are plenty of times that I might think that you might think that I might want to go back to.”

“Oh my god, Mr. Stark, answer the question.”

Tony purses his lips. He brings one of his hands up under his chin and stares out at the waves, like he’s really thinking about his answer. Peter watches him intently.

“Nah,” he says, in an obnoxious voice. 

He stands up and starts walking back towards the car. “Am glad to be retired though.”

“Are you?” Peter calls as he scrambles up to follow him.

“Why do people keep asking me that?”

* * *

They fly to San Francisco the next morning. 

The flight takes off exactly on the dot and there’s very little turbulence in the air. It's smooth sailing—the whole trip has been.

They’ve made it to every tour on time. None of the members of their tour groups have been exceedingly annoying. Every hotel room has been pristine. Tony hasn’t even been recognized yet, which sort of makes sense. A lot of people are sporting his signature goatee these days, and he’s grown out the hair on his head, letting it gray and curl naturally. He covers up his metal arm with long sleeves and gloves when they’re in public. 

Peter doesn’t usually have this kind of luck, but he’s trying not to think about it. Maybe the universe decided that he and Tony deserve a little break after all the shit that went down last year—or the last six years for people who were alive.

He’s still feels a little on edge.

They’re at UC Berkeley, inside the one of the undergraduate libraries, when Peter feels a slight tremble beneath his feet. He looks at the ground warily, but it’s not too strong. Peter can sense things easier than most people. He tries to ignore it and focus on what the tour guide is saying.

And then his neck starts itching. He turns to Tony.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispers.

Tony looks around the room, pressing the side of his glasses as he does so. Peter starts tapping his foot nervously.

A vase on the librarian’s desk starts to shake. Peter immediately locks in on it, taking a few steps forward.

It catches the tour guide’s attention as well, she gestures to it with the same enthusiasm as when she showed them the outside of the library—which is a lot. Peter thinks the job must be paid by the amount of energy a guide exudes. 

“The Hayward fault runs through the east side of campus, so we get the occasional earthquake. We’re experiencing a small one right now!” She flails her hands toward the base again. “But don’t worry, parents. I’ve been here for almost three years and the campus has never experienced any major damages in my time here!”

Peter’s neck twinges again, this time sharper, sending the sensation down his spine. He winces and clamps a hand over it.

So much for smooth sailing.

“This isn’t going to be good,” he tells Tony.

The whole building jolts—more accurately, the Earth jolts, but it feels like it’s the building. Peter hears the vase shatter as it hits the ground. He sees Tony falling, but Peter can’t do anything to stop it, because he’s been thrown to the side, too. There are gasps and screams, thuds as books fly off shelves and people tumble to the ground. 

Peter sticks to a table, but it doesn’t do him much good. It starts to slide as the ground shifts until he finds himself pinned to a wall. He could push it off, but it might just come crashing back or worse hit someone else, so he decides to wait it out. He’s never experienced an earthquake before. He doesn’t know how long they last. He has the irrational fear that it may never stop.

But it does. 

Peter groans and pushes the table away from him before struggling to his feet. The building feels off. Either his brain is scattered or the floor is tilted. 

There’s almost nothing left standing, shelves are knocked against each other, light fixtures have fallen to the ground, and there are countless people in various stages of collecting themselves—trying to rise back to their feet.

“Tony?” Peter walks in the direction of where the front desk had been. “Tony!”

“Yup,” he grunts.

Peter follows the direction of his voice, helping a few students out from under a shelf on his way.

Tony’s sitting with his back against the librarian’s desk—although the desk is about 20 feet from its original location.

“Are you okay?” Peter grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet. 

He winces on the way up, but transforms it into a forced smile. “This rules out all California schools, right?”

Peter doesn’t have a joke to retort with. He just nods, because it kind of does.

The tour guide bounces up from behind the desk. “Everyone okay?”

Tony and Peter just look at her. She keeps smiling right on back.

“Everyone who was in my group,” she yells, holding up a hand. “Please follow me to the door. We’ll do a count once we get there.”

She starts walking and then hesitates, holding up her hand again. “But, if you can’t move, stay where you are!”

“What’s going on with the hand?”

“Don’t be mean,” Peter says, but he’s kind of laughing along, because every time she talks she raises it, like it’s projecting her voice. “She’s doing her best.”

They follow her to the door. Familiar faces from their group converge around them. Peter’s relieved to see that everyone seems to be okay. Then, the tour guide stops abruptly. 

“Oh dear,” she says.

Tony makes a dismayed noise beside Peter. He points at the exit.

It’s collapsed, like part of the roof sunk down and covered the doors, effectively trapping them in the building.

She turns around and claps her hands, perky as ever. “Okay, everyone, we’ve hit a little snag, but I’m sure that emergency response teams are on their way and they’ll get us out as soon as possible.”

“Want to lift it up instead,” Tony murmurs out of the side of his mouth.

“Dude,” Peter hisses back. “I can’t. How would we explain that? Can you use your arm?”

“My arm is purely functional.”

Peter gapes at him. “I thought that was a joke! Why would you do that?”

“I’m retired!”

The tour guide clears her throat, sending a pointed look in Tony and Peter’s direction. “Maybe we can play some more ice breakers while we wait.”

Tony’s face goes completely blank at her words. “I’m going to die here, surrounded by undergrads and the college-bound—playing icebreakers.”

Peter’s still not quite comfortable with anyone, even the man himself, using the d-word in reference to Tony. But, it is kind of funny. The whole situation is actually, in an ironic way—two people who fought for the fate of the universe a little over a year ago stymied by an earthquake and a few collapsed columns.

The tour guide’s eyes are glaring at them, but her mouth is still smiling. It’s actually kind of impressive. 

“Nobody is dying,” she says, punctuating each word with a pause to emphasize the point.

“I should have let the stones take me,” Tony mumbles. “That would have been an honorable way to go.”

“Mr. Stark, with all due respect, shut up.”

Tony eases himself down to the floor with a little difficulty. Peter almost mentions it, but they were just in an earthquake and Tony’s getting older—which is not a topic to draw any attention to—so he decides against it.

“First, we’re going to go around and say our name and what we’re going to bring to the picnic. But, the trick is, whatever you bring to the picnic has to start with the same letter as your name!”

Tony heaves a long, deep sigh and slumps over a little more.

“I’ll start! My name is Lexie and I’ll be bringing lemonade.”

It’s honestly helpful, because Peter had forgotten her name.

They start going around the circle. Each person says their name and their picnic item.

When it gets to Peter, he gives the group a little wave. “I’m Peter and I’ll bring pizza.”

Lexie smiles at him and nods like he just said something groundbreaking.

Tony doesn’t lift his head off the wall that he’s leaning on. “Tony, taseometer.”

The smile on her face wavers. “What’s that?”

“Measures the stress on a building,” Tony drawls. “This library could have used one.”

Her smile grows to an almost manic size. “This is for a picnic. You’re supposed to bring a food—or a drink.”

“I’ll stick with my taseometer, thanks.”

She blinks a few times and then moves on to the next person. 

“Nailed it,” Tony mutters to Peter.

Peter snickers.

Overall, he’s feeling pretty good about being trapped in a library in the aftermath of an earthquake. It’s one of the less stressful times he’s spent with Tony. It’s infinitely better than dying on a faraway planet, or sitting in a hospital room waiting for Tony to wake up.

Then a girl—one of the undergrads who’d been studying in the library—runs over to their group. Her face is streaked with tears and she’s talking so fast that her words jumble together in an unintelligible tangle of syllables. 

Tony stands and lays a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Slow down. What happened?”

“My friend!” She starts gesturing wildly with her hands. “He’s under some shelves and I think he’s unconscious and I can’t move it and I don’t know what to do please. Please—can you—”

“Yup,” Tony says, patting Peter on the back. “You’re up, bud.”

The girl eyes him reproachfully. “Him?”

Peter frowns. He may not be the strongest-looking guy in the group, but he doesn't think he looks like the weakest either. She didn't have to say it like that. 

“Don’t worry, between the two of us, we can lift it. C’mon Pete.”

They follow her to the shelf. Tony bumps into him a few times on the way over. Peter sends him a quizzical look. He just flashes one of his half-smiles that Peter can never read.

Just as the girl said, there’s a guy, knocked out, with a shelf and some books piled on top of him.

“Let’s clear the books first,” Tony says. 

He bends to grab one, but his motions are hitched and jerky, face tense. Peter watches him repeat the process a few times before sidling up next to him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” His tone is curt—a clear ‘drop it’ behind the word.

So Peter does. He goes back to stacking books on the side.

Once the books are removed, Tony takes a step back, pressing his hands into his sides.

“Okay, Pete, we’re going to lift it and angle the front just enough that it’s not on top of him, okay? Nothing crazy like chucking the whole thing across the room.”

The girl laughs a little at that. Peter glares at Tony.

Tony exaggerates the pained look on his face as he places his hands on the shelf while Peter picks it up and moves it to the side.

“We did it,” Tony huffs out.

He sounds out of breath, plopping down and leaning against the shelf. Peter raises his eyebrows. It’s an Oscar-worthy performance. 

“Check his pulse, Pete.”

Peter doesn’t know much about pulses, but he complies. He can hear it, if he focuses, but he presses his fingers to the boy’s neck anyway. There’s a steady beat beneath his fingertips.

“Um—it’s there. That’s about all I’ve got.”

“Perfect,” Tony murmurs.

The girl sighs in relief and sits next to her friend, rubbing his back.

Lexie makes her way over with the rest of the tour group in tow. Her smile looks like it’s shaking a little around the edges. Peter can’t blame her. The poor girl had no idea what she was signing up for when she applied to be a tour guide.

“We need to stay together,” she says. “You guys can’t just leave the group.”

“Look at that, we’re back together,” Tony says. 

Lexie’s eyes flash, but she just gestures for the rest of the group to sit instead of replying.

Tony’s head lolls towards Peter. “Are the paramedics here yet?”

“Um, I don’t think so.”

“Alright.” He closes his eyes. “Wake me up when things start happening.”

Peter decides to follow Tony’s example. He doesn’t think he’ll actually sleep, but it wouldn’t hurt to lean back and rest his eyes. At least then Lexie won’t bother them to play any more icebreakers.

Peter often listens to heartbeats or breaths to help himself relax. Especially in the beginning, when everything was so _loud_ , it helped to focus on something small and rhythmic. Then after Thanos, he started to do it even more. It's comforting to hear people breathing. He tunes into Tony’s out of habit.

So he notices as it slowly changes, becomes a bit more labored.

“Mr. Stark,” he whispers.

There’s no response. Peter shakes his shoulders. Tony’s eyelids flutter a little, but don’t open.

He’s transported back to a decimated battle-field, creatures turning to dust all around him. He rips the buttons on Tony’s jacket to check if the light of the arc reactor is flickering out underneath. It’s stupid. He knows it’s not there. Tony doesn’t even wear the nanotech compartment even more.

Instead, he finds a red stain, about the size of his fist, coloring the bottom right side of Tony’s shirt. 

Peter stumbles backwards, covering his mouth.

“Peter? What’s wrong?” Lexie grabs his arm. 

Peter shakes her off and goes back to Tony’s side.

“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, wake up.”

“Oh my god. Is that blood?” Lexie kneels beside him. “Did you say Stark? Tony _Stark_?”

Peter ignores her. Some instinct in the back of his brain is telling him to apply pressure, so he does, pressing down into the wound.

Tony groans and shifts a little.

“Oh my god.” The smile is completely gone from Lexie’s face. She looks different without it. “Oh my god. Nobody is bleeding out on my tour. Tony Stark is not bleeding out on my tour!”

Peter closes his eyes. He agrees with her on that one. Tony is retired. They’re on vacation. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Pressure’s good,” Lexie says. “But I don’t think your hands are the best option.”

“What should we use then?” His voice is a few octaves too high. 

Lexie strips off her jacket and holds it out. “We could try this.”

“Switch me,” Peter says.

“One sec.” She pulls out a mini bottle of hand sanitizer and douses her hands with it and then nods.

Peter removes his hands and Lexie automatically puts hers where his had been. He admires her relative calm demeanor under pressure. She doesn’t even flinch at the amount of blood.

He tears her jacket into a few smaller pieces. Lexie lifts her hand and Peter stuffs the cloth around the wound. Then he takes off his own jacket and rips it into long strips. 

He lifts Tony up so that he can wrap the longer pieces around his body. The movement elicits random noises that sound almost like words and a few blinks.

“Mr. Stark? Tony? Can you hear me?”

“The paramedics here?” His words slur together. 

Peter looks at Lexie. 

“I’ll go check,” she says, springing to her feet and jogging to the nearest window.

“Lexie’s going to find out,” Peter says. “You can’t die, okay? You can’t almost die either—not again.”

“M’fine.”

“No, you’re not! Why didn’t you tell me? What even happened?”

“Vase got pointy.” Tony’s eyelids start to lower again. “No biggie.”

The stupid fucking vase. Peter would slam it into the ground if it wasn’t already in jagged shards next to the librarian’s desk.

“You have to stay awake, okay?”

Tony hums, eyes closing. Peter shakes his arm a few times.

“They’re trying to remove enough of the debris to get in through the door,” Lexie says, slightly out of breath. 

Peter feels tears starting to well in his eyes. He shakes his head, but all it does it blur his vision. “They’re not going to get here in time.”

“Yes, they are. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Peter stares down at Tony. A few of his tears drip from his eyes onto the pile of jacket pieces they fastened to him.

“Hey, come here.” Lexie wraps her arms around Peter. It’s kind of weird, because he met her about two hours ago, but nice too. “There's no crying on my tour either. Got it?”

“Got it,” Peter whispers. 

* * *

One ambulance ride and a couple of hours later, a doctor opens a door and ushers Peter and Lexie into a room. 

Tony smiles up at them from the bed with squinty eyes.

“Tony Stark,” Lexie says, a note of awe in her voice. Peter doesn’t understand why it’s still there. Her hands were covered in his blood not too long ago. That should break the hero-worship bubble. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Peter moves to a chair in the corner and sits, arms crossed.

“Hi, Lexie. I heard you were very helpful after I conked out. So thank you—for that and—” Tony’s eyes flick over to him, but Peter resolutely stays focused on the heart monitor to Tony’s right. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh my god. Don’t be sorry. This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lexie gushes. “And helping save Tony Stark’s life will look great on my med school application.”

Tony’s face lights up and Peter immediately knows that Lexie will get into a top med school with all her expenses paid. She’ll probably make a good doctor, too. She was better than Peter was under pressure in the library.

“I’ve got to head out,” she says. “My mom drove down from Sacramento when she heard about the earthquake. So nice to meet you. This has been awesome—except the part where a vase almost killed you.”

She lets out a little laugh and then waves, exiting the room.

“She seems like a good kid,” Tony muses. “I shouldn’t have given her a hard time in the beginning.”

Peter huffs and crosses his arms tighter instead of answering. 

“I said I was sorry!”

“You were talking to Lexie. That doesn’t count.”

Tony sighs. “You know it’s not my specialty.”

Peter goes back to watching the heart monitor.

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry, _Peter_. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.” Tony hesitates, fiddles with his IV for a moment. “I just—I didn’t want to cause you any more stress after everything. This was supposed to be fun, you know? To forget about everything else.”

"This stressed me out more—so that backfired."

"Noted."

Peter counts the heartbeats with the monitor. They're even and strong.

"Come on, kid, look at me. I'm sorry—really. Won't happen again."

Peter swallows. Then he nods. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

“Well, thank god for that.”

“You’re not done though. Just wait until we get back. Of all the people you're going to have to apologize to, I'm by far the easiest.”

Tony groans. “Can you go back by yourself and pretend I died?”

“Shut UP!”

**Author's Note:**

> A few days late lol this one gave me trouble!
> 
> I don't think a UC Berkeley library would actually collapse like this but I did read that some of the school's buildings didn't get the best ratings in seismic evaluations at some point and thus this fic was born.


End file.
